RED BANK: WEEKLONG DETOUR FOR WATER JOB
Avoid it if you can: access to a busy Red Bank intersection will be shut down for a week starting early Monday morning.
RED BANK: MULTIPLE INJURIES IN CRASH
Red Bank police reported “numerous” injuries, none of them life-threatening, after a three-car crash early Saturday afternoon.
WHAT’S FOR LUNCH? A RED LIGHT SANDWICH
The Big Tuna, one of only four sandwiches offered at Red Light Coffee and Espresso Bar. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Seeking out a caffeine fix, PieHole stopped in at the Red Light Coffee and Espresso Bar in Lincroft’s Acme shopping center on Newman Springs Road.
On a strip that also houses Aleo’s Italian Specialties, this 10-month-old java joint is turning out more than the expected demitasse and cappuccino. The jewel-box-sized, ruby-walled 650-square-foot space is also serving up gourmet sandwiches.
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LINCROFT: FIRST AIRING FOR EXIT 109 PLANS
C.J. Lagan, at right, studies proposed changes for exit 109 at the township library Thursday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A proposed reconfiguration of Garden State Parkway exit 109 in Lincroft drew dozens of nearby residents and commuters to the Middletown Township Public Library Thursday afternoon.
According to project manager Maynard Abuan, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority plans to spend $60 million on the two-year interchange rebuild, which calls for:
LINCROFT: $60M EXIT 109 REBUILD SLATED
The plan calls for the elimination of the problematic jughandle at Half Mile Road that eastbound motorists now have to use to access the parkway’s northbound lanes. Below, a 2013 schematic of the planned changes. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Attention Red Bank area motorists: Exit 109 of the Garden State Parkway is in line for a two-year, $60 million reconstruction, NJ.com reports.
Work on the Lincroft interchange at Newman Springs Road won’t start until 2017, a spokesman for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority tells transportation writer Larry Higgs.
But the authority, which owns the Parkway, is giving commuters a first look at what’s to come – including a new “flyover” ramp from eastbound Newman Springs Road onto the northbound parkway lanes to replace the dreaded Half Mile Road jughandle – at an information session scheduled for Thursday in Middletown.
RED BANK: TODDLER, GREAT-GRANDMOM HIT
Emergency responders on the scene, above. Below, a State Police helicopter raises a cloud of dust at Count Basie Field while taking off for Neptune with one of the victims onboard. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
[This article was updated at 8:45 a.m. Friday to include the names and relationship of the victims and the driver, as well as the woman’s condition.]
An 85-year-old Red Bank woman was in critical condition after she and her four-year-old great-grandchild were struck by a vehicle while crossing Newman Springs Road Thursday night.
The child, Cashmir Lahsir Hicks, was not seriously injured in the accident, which occurred when the pair jaywalked across the busy four-lane roadway after making a purchase at the Burger King near Shrewsbury Avenue shortly before 8 p.m., said police Chief Darren McConnell.
RED BANK: BRIDGE FIX NEARS COMPLETION
The rebuilding of twin Route 520/Newman Springs Road bridges over the Swimming River between Red Bank and Middletown, which began in April, is on schedule to wrap up next month, Monmouth County officials said Tuesday. Milling and paving of the roadway approaches was to start Wednesday morning. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
RED BANK: ZONERS REJECT SHELL 7-ELEVEN
By SARAH KLEPNER
The likelihood of Red Bank getting a third 7-Eleven anytime soon melted like a Slurpee left on a dashboard Thursday night.
After 10 months, extensive testimony and textbook-quality legal briefs on zoning law, the borough zoning board unanimously denied an application for a 7-Eleven to replace an inactive car wash at the Shell gasoline station on Newman Springs Road at Shrewsbury Avenue.
NEWMAN SPRINGS ROAD SQUEEZE BEGINS
The narrowing of twin Newman Springs Road (Route 520) bridges over the Swimming River got its first test at rush hour Tuesday morning with a long line of vehicles heading eastbound from Lincroft into Red Bank. A project to replace the decks of the two bridges is expected to take six months, with traffic reduced to one lane in each direction for the duration, according to Monmouth County officials. (Click to enlarge)
SIX-MONTH ROUTE 520 BOTTLENECK TO BEGIN
One of two spans will remain open throughout the duration of the project, but with just one lane in each direction. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A taxing season begins Monday night for commuters who use Route 520 to get into and out of Red Bank.
Following the evening rush, traffic across the twin decks of the bridge over the Swimming River, between Hance Avenue and the Garden State Parkway, will be narrowed from two lanes in each direction to one.
Those few souls who traverse the span on foot or use it for fishing and crabbing will be entirely out of luck: no pedestrian access will be permitted at all.
“Motorists should expect delays and are encouraged to plan alternate routes for the next six months,” the county government says in a press release, which is an improvement from last month, when it was warning of an eight-month timetable.
BOTTLENECK AHEAD AT ROUTE 520 SPANS
Motorists will face a narrowing of the twin bridges to one lane in each direction for up to eight months, officials said. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The heavily traveled Newman Springs Road/Route 520 bridges linking Red Bank and Lincroft are in for a belt-tightening.
The four-lane connectors between Parkway exit 109 and points east will be narrowed to one lane in each direction for up to eight months during repairs, Monmouth County Freeholder Tom Arnone announced in a press release late Wednesday.
Work is scheduled to start on or soon after April 1, with vehicular traffic pared to two lanes for the duration, and pedestrian usage banned, according to the announcement. Weather permitting, the job is expected to wrap up in late November.
LITTLE SILVER TEEN BADLY HURT IN HEAD-ON
Volunteer firefighters peel open the roof of the minivan to extricate its driver. (Click to enlarge)
An 18-year-old Little Silver man was helicoptered to a trauma center after the minivan he was driving collided head-on with a truck along the Red Bank-Tinton Falls border Sunday afternoon, Red Bank police said.
The driver, whose name was not available Sunday night, was flown to Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune with serious injuries following the 2:11 p.m. accident, said Captain Darren McConnell.
RED BANK: FIAT DEALER EYES TIGHT CORNER
A vacant lot that was last home to a car rental business could be revived as a Fiat dealership, according to plans filed with the borough. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank may be getting a Fiat store.
Representatives of Miglo Motors have submitted plans for consideration with the borough planning office for a dealership that would include a new, 10,000-square-foot showroom at the corner of Newman Springs Road and Broad Street, opposite Dunkin’ Donuts.
NO SERIOUS INJURIES IN TWO-CAR CRASH
It took emergency volunteers more than half an hour to extricate a 36-year-old Red Bank woman after a two-car smashup on Newman Springs Road Thursday night, but no one one was seriously injured in the accident at the intersection of Clifford Place, police said. Westbound traffic on Newman Springs Road was detoured in the interim, and the unidentified woman and the driver of the car in which she was a passenger were both taken to Riverview Medical Center, said police spokesman Captain Darren McConnell. The driver of the second vehicle was uninjured. Summonses are pending, McConnell said. (Click to enlarge)
MIDDLETOWN COP ARRESTS BELT-SWINGER
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Yet another busy week for Middletown police, the department reports, with seven arrests the last five days.
In today’s weekly roundup from Detective Lieutenant Steve Dollinger, there’s a man wielding a belt with a combination lock tied to the end, a report of a car v. barrier on the Garden State Parkway and a couple of arrests on warrants.
DOWNED WIRES KNOCK OUT POWER
Downed utility wires in front of Westside Hose Company in Red Bank knocked out power to a block of homes on Leighton Avenue and forced the closure of the street between Newman Springs Road and W. Westside Avenue Tuesday afternoon. The utility company was on the scene working to restore power at about 2:30p, but it was unknown how long that would take. No further details were available. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
WEAVING A WEB OF FULFILLMENT, FINALLY
Black Widow Bike Works owner Joy Luv Montefusco, left, and her right-hand man, Mike Jastrzemski, are quietly making a name for themselves in the Red Bank area. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
It was June of last year, and Joy Luv Montefusco was within a week of moving to Chicago with old art school friends to pursue poetry. She’d had enough.
Montefusco said she’d faced opposition from the moment she graduated the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Arizona, where she was laughed at for applying for a job at Harley-Davidson because she was a female. But even when she landed a job the company, Montefusco said she didn’t get a workbench to use.
“I worked on the floor, on my hands and knees, for the first four months,” Montefusco, 30, said. “A lot of the guys didn’t even talk to me.” She left the company after she was told she’d never make it as a mechanic, and started her own business, Black Widow Bike Works, in Toms River.
After three years of working long days in a rickety building trying to convince people that she could do top-notch work, Montefusco decided to give up her dream and pack it north. But then her girlfriend pushed her to give it one more shot. More →